Levitha's Blanket – Midday
Many have known the proprietress is an air mage, so it's not unreasonable that it looks like a whirlwind tore through the inn. However, it's a band of Lapi, and a Skeek working at cleanup, righting tables, sweeping up smashed crockery, and prying crossbow bolts out of the woodwork. Though it's hardly necessary, a detail of militiamen slouch outside; it's hard to discern whether they're meant to keep people out or in.

"Okay, Anisa… ," says Gibson, stooping at one end of a large, rough-planked table, and setting his hands on it. "On three. One, two, three!"

On the third count, the snow white Lapi lifts the table, putting her back into it as her muscles tense. "I can't believe that they're making us stay here with a guard detail," she says idly, hardly noticing the weight of the table, "I mean, it's not like we've done anything, or going anywhere for that matter."

Nearby, Wanda putters around, sweeping shards of pottery and plates into a dustpan. She never strays far from Royce, whose wiggling pink nose is buried in the great steel-bound book in his lap, and she occasionally peeks over his shoulder curiously until someone glances at her and makes her go back to sweeping.

Gibson grunts, then moves a bit to be sure the thick oaken table is positioned over where it was before it got knocked over. He sets it down, nodding at Anisa. "Well, they're not too sure just what happened, and they're very conservative in this town. I'm sure it's just a formality while they get things sorted out. Spencer and Janice'll put in a good word for us, no doubt."

"I hope so." After setting the table down, Anisa looks over at Royce curiously, dusting off her still crimson stained paws. "Finding anything interesting in there?"

The splotchy rabbit scratches behind one of his ears, his nose giving a thoughtful twitch as he lays the book flat in his lap. "Definitely interesting," muses Royce. "But I can't make a whole lot of sense out of it. There's training for ancient dialects back with the Technopriest initiates, which is why I'm able to tell that this is really, really old Standard … but it'll take me a while to decipher things. That's not all, either."

Anisa scrubs at her hand, grimacing upon finding that the blood stain is still there. "What can you make out so far? Anything?" She looks around to see what else needs tidying, slowly going nuts over being cooped up for so long.

The blood smears, and a little bit of it rubs off in little rust-colored clots. Bleh. Royce ducks his head back down, leafing through pages. "The dialect I mentioned doesn't stay the same. It gradually turns into something I can't make any sense of. There's all sorts of diagrams in here that look technical, but they're mixed with odd, decorative-looking things unlike anything I've ever seen, and there's some pretty bizarro maps. One of them looks like it's of this area, the coast, based on a map I saw hanging up in the library."

The white Lapi walks over behind her little brother, and peers over his shoulder for a better look. "Looks like this area? That's odd." She scans the print, grimacing. "How can you make ears or tails of any of that?"

Royce sniffs. "Some of us embraced education, Miss Manners." He pantomimes sipping from a teacup, pinkie extended.

Anisa flicks one of Royce's ears with her fingertip. "Quiet, broccoli breath." She walks over to the bar, and starts to pick up some of the broken glass with a cloth. "Well, that book has to be important to at least somebody, the way those guys were after it."

Royce rubs at the numbed tip of his ear, grimacing. "Hard to say. As far as I can tell, it was a glorified record book for a civilization from long ago."

Gibson nods while ambling to the kitchen. "Probably that same bunch that Jipulu's stuff used to belong to."

"Is that why the dialect changes as you get further into it," asks Anisa, "because of the change in time?" She looks to Gibson. "What do you remember about Jipulu's stuff?"

"I think so," says Royce, nodding. He begins leafing through the book again.

Gibson returns from the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, carrying a tub of hot, soapy water. "Precious little, sis," he says, setting the tub on a table. Water slops over the brim, leaving some suds on the tabletop. "A lot of it seemed like junk and trinkets, but I was never clear on any of it. I was able to gather a little of their history, just basic stuff. Here, wash your paws and face."

The female Lapi walks over to the tabletop and rolls up the sleeves of her shirt, then dips her paws into the water, scrubbing at the rusty splotches. "Do you still have any of them, besides the stuff you sent us? Maybe the book will give us a clue about them."

The stains and dust from tussling, though stubborn, steadily dissolve under the scrubbing. Gibson shakes his head. "No, I sent it all to you, sealed, boxed, and with an express courier, so those maniacs wouldn't get a hold of it." He grins. "Which is kind of funny, because it came right back to me. If I'd known it would, I'd have saved myself the fee!"

Anisa smirks, taking her hands from the washbasin and drying them on a nearby cloth. "Well, they're still upstairs. Maybe I should get them and we should take another look, see if they're in the book or anything. They had to have some purpose, and that book seems similar to them, strangely enough."

Meanwhile, Royce lifts the book to prop it up, pages out so it can be seen. "Here's that map I was talking about." The book is opened to an elaborate looking two-page map. The jagged coastline of the Seaborne Reach can be seen, bordered with crosshatched sea. Painstaking detail brings the forests and rivers to life, drawn to meet the scale of the map, but with added features such as pebbles and reeds on the rivers, and lushly drawn forests that make it look like a little patch of ground rather than hundreds of miles. Various icons are scattered over it, but the majority seem clustered on and over an island off the coast.

Gibson nods at Anisa. "Great idea, sis."

The white rabbit glances at the book, then nods. "I'll be right back," she says, then quickly sprints upstairs. A few minutes later, she reappears with one of her suitcases, hefting it up onto the bar. "They should all be here – except for the First Stone that is." She rubs a paw over the pendant hanging from her neck, then pops the suitcase top open.

Laying in the bottom is the glass, multicolored cylinder, and the black brick, both of which Gibson pick up and examine thoughtfully. "I didn't really think much of these at the time … that the one was probably an art object, and the other … well, I just couldn't make sense of that. There was nothing like it in the rare records and things I'd seen."

Anisa leaves Gibson with the artifacts, and goes over to look at the tome with Royce. "Maybe this thing'll change all that." She studies the map. "What do all those icons mean?"

"No idea, 'Nisa," replies Royce, shrugging. He points at the island where most of the more prominent icons are. "There seems to be a lot of emphasis on this, though. I think it's called 'Levitha's Pearl'. It's an island about thirty or forty miles off the coast. I've heard and read all kinds of strange things about it at the library. Real strange things. Remember Wacky Wayne, the glass eater at the bazaar on Rephidim? This place is a zillion times weirder than him."

The white Lapi flops an ear, looking at her brother quizzically. "How so? Are there weird monsters there or something?" She squints at the map, trying to make it out for herself.

The map is scaled so that the island is relatively small on the map, but close enough inspection reveals a few things. In the center of the island is a small white square with five white spokes on it, almost like a star. North of it is a black square, and two more lie to the southeast and southwest of it. The other icons around it don't seem to follow much rhyme or reason, though there are lines pointing at the squares, and relating them to some of the icons.

"Maybe there used to be some sort of city out there," says Anisa, rubbing the pendant at her neck idly. "They could have been made there. What did the books you read say was out there, or what you heard?"

"Monsters, tribes, cults, magical anomalies… you name it." Royce shakes his head, his ears flopping around. "It sounds to me like a Forbidden Zone, but I guess it was all subtle enough not to have a claim staked to it. Or maybe too dangerous."

"There's some specific legends and stories associated with the place, of course," he adds.

Gibson waggles a paw in a 'sorta' gesture. "I hear it's not overt in its influences," he says. "Strange things go on in there, but people have gone there to hunt and come back with no problems, so it's not considered so deadly as to be named a Forbidden Zone. People who've tried to explore too far have usually disappeared, though. It's pretty hard to navigate."

Anisa begins to massage at an ear, casting her eyes to the floor in thought. Her mouth is silent. This can't be good…

There's a knock at the door, soft and polite.

The white rabbit is suddenly jolted back to reality at the knock. "Oh, uh, come in!" She shrugs at her brothers. "I guess it's one of the rangers."

Indeed, the door allows a smooth-looking lizard in a leather vest to poke his head and shoulders in. "The Magistrate is ready to see you," hisses Monitor.

Anisa frowns, looking to the others in the room with wilting ears. "Well, I guess we'd better get this over with." She makes her way over to the door, following behind the monitor.